Sawyer's episode of Catfish was a memorable one, because she was both the catfisher and the catfished. She and her online crush, Michael Fortunato, had been exchanging altered images of themselves for seven years.

After their face-to-face meeting on the show, they kept in touch. Tragically, Fortunato died of a pulmonary embolism just one month after their episode aired. He was 26. Sawyer told MTV at the time that they were "very much in love" before his death and were "definitely moving forward."